A blog by Elim International Missions Director Paul Hudson

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VAR

Acts 25: 8 “Then Paul made his defence: ‘I have done nothing wrong against the Jewish law or against the temple or against Caesar.’”

I have done nothing wrong …

Against what makes a Jew a Jew: Paul followed the law of Moses, in fact that is why he was in the temple in the first place, keeping the ceremonial laws.

Against the worship life: Paul had not taken a Gentile into the temple.

Against the ruler of the land: Paul had not formed a gang to rise and challenge the Roman leaders.

It is easy looking back to see how this could be so black and white. But at the time it was very grey. These lies were hard to disprove as well as prove.

Here in the UK we have a new abbreviated word called VAR, it stands for Video Assisted Referee and we are starting to have to use it in our games of football because on the football pitch in the heat of the action it is difficult to know who has done something wrong or who hasn’t.

The VAR shows it from a birds eye-view of who was wrong and who was right. It is what we can see from our television screens and from the stadiums as we sit and watch the action.

Since a child I was always told that one day there would be a big VAR when we get to heaven. I have always hoped I would be the only one who could see the VAR on my life as I would find it very embarrassing indeed!

But on the pitch of life, though we seem to have surveillance cameras everywhere, much of our life is spent battling the condemnatory attacks against our mind: “you have failed, you are not what you should be, you are not a true Christian, you are not an example, you have broken the rules.’

Maybe we should start speaking up a bit louder to these condemnatory voices like Paul and say ‘I have done nothing wrong’ and if there are times when I have done wrong then the heavenly VAR will spot it and make a judgment. Thankfully that judgment is filtered by the cleansing blood of Jesus over my life.